With no music to cut the silence, and my travel buddy passed out next to me, I navigated our little white jeep up and down meandering switchback after meandering switchback. Having only made it half way from our hostel to Latrabjarg, we tucked tail and made our way home for fear of running out of gas. Our first night in Iceland taught us a lesson. If the GPS says it will take 4 hours, it will take ten. The roads are rough, but the real reason is that the beautiful scenery begs you to stop after every bend.

I’d struggled to find a groove on this drive, as I so often do when I dust off the photography skills in a new destination. Then, the sun began to reverse its brief dip just below the horizon and something magical happened. A soft light bathed the landscape, bursting through gaps in the cloud to the north. The birds began to awaken and fill the air with song. Approaching a bend, ascending out of another fjord I suddenly found inspiration. The serenity of the moment seemed to be summed up in the single view captured below. Huge cliffs sat peacefully in the distance as a road twisted and turned its way along the edge of the fjords. There wasn’t another car or person in sight. I’d just driven that stretch, and there was a long way to go until I’d reach a bed, but I had to stop, step out in the cold, and mount my camera atop my tripod and try to do the view before me justice.

A beautiful, sunset in a quaint Canadian town, provided the perfect backdrop for this calm scene on the shores of Lake Ontario. This was taken just as winter was turning to Spring. It was an early Spring, hence the boats are on the dock rather than in the water chomping at the bit. The serene surface of the lake provided a perfect mirror to help show off the sky.

Only a chain-linked fence threatened to ruin the shot. In a panic, as the light looked ready to fade, I figure out how to use the fence in concert with my tripod to get the shot. You can read more about how I did that here.

If you’re watching the sunset on the South Shore of Bermuda it’s worth turning around and looking towards the East. As the sun dips below the horizon it’s pretty common for a pink band to appear on the opposite horizon that gradually moves up into the sky until it dissolves into the deepening blue sky. This photo was taken just as this pink band started it’s march upward.

When I was working this photo up in Photomatix I clicked on the rocks for a close up to check on the detail. I was surprised the discover that right where I clicked, perfectly centered in the preview square, was etched JANIE4JASON.

This is the photo that I had planned on uploading for my first entry. I decided this would be a good start as I consider it my first successful HDR photo.

I had woken up late and had to rush out of the house as I’d seen a purple glow developing. Had planned on getting to one of the Tucker’s Town beaches when i came across this scene.

I used 7 exposures from -3 to +3. The boats had swung on their moorings while taking the photos so when combining in Photomatix I used the selective de-ghosting tool. This took a few attempts but I eventually settled on one big circle encompassing most of the water. Still some motion blur on some of the boats but not sure I could have avoided this. After HDR processing I worked with layers to bring up details in the foreground and particularly focused on getting some green into the trees in the background. Finally, run through Topaz Adjust to bump up the level of detail before using Noiseware to smooth it out.

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If you’re interested in licensing any of the photos featured here, or if you just want to say hi, please e-mail johnnyp@traverseearth.com.

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